I’ve spent a lot of time on Instagram recently. I hadn’t planned on doing this. Far from it, actually. Like all great events in my life, I had just found myself there. I didn’t know how, but I was logged in. So I spent the next two hours peeking about.

Eventually, I was doing what everybody does. I would like a few photographs, then a few more, and when I found a photographer I really liked, I double clicked as many as of hers or his as I could. Satisfied with myself, I logged off and went to bed.

When it comes to famous images The Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci is one of the most recognized in the world. All the ballyhoo regarding it made me read about it too extensively. I never got a chance to visit the Louvre myself, but I saw many videos, clippings and read many experiences of the people seeing the image in actual. This was the 1500’s but now, as I am more focused into photography, I wonder what was it that made the image so eye grabbing? What should a Photographer learn from this portrait?

As a photographer you have to take a lot of things into consideration – Composition, Poses, Lighting and the list goes on… But, as a Portrait photographer you have other important and often overlooked challenges as well. Focusing more on the subjects, you face challenges such as poor light, hectic work schedule and much more! How should a photographer deal with those?

Not everyday you have the chance to meet one who has been a director of Photography at popular magazines like Life and Vibe. My luck has been jammy with meeting prodigious photographers like George Pitts. I was in awe of his writing and artwork. His works have appeared in “S Magazine (Denmark), The Partisan Review, The Paris Review, Big magazine, One World, Vibe, aRude, Juxtapoz, Next Level: a critical review of Photography (UK), Parenthesis, and other publications.

This was enough to get cracking onto more in his life. His popularity is directly proportional to his humility, I feel. He was kind enough to patiently answer all my questions. This classy, classy gentlemen has been the in the painting bailiwick since 20 years. Let’s learn more about this life, current trends in Fine Art Photography, some tips, gear knowledge and much more from him.

We all have ideals. I had a friend, in high school, whose sole dream was to be a punk—or be nothing at all. I also had a friend who dreamed of being a writer—and nothing else. And there were a few who would have settled with no less than having one good poem to their name. Of course, I had friends who actually did do nothing. We all have ideals–what matters is when you lose them.

Art is inviolable. Art never falls for those who really don’t love it. Because we were too scared or too lazy or too comfortable, we started thinking about other things. That’s not bad. It’s growing up, I guess. Phillippe Diederich isn’t one of us, though, and that’s why I’m here writing about him. Phillippe Diederich is a writer and a photographer who stuck it out.

If you know little about Street Photography then you would know that, in Street Photography the primary subject of the picture maybe completely devoid of people. It can be an object or environment where an aesthetic human character can be projected. Well, human or not, the idea is to capture pictures at a poignant moment! This candid photography is currently quite respected all over but has also been an issue of conflict. Even with these issues, it did not stop Michael Ernest Sweet from jumping with his 28mm in this field!

It’s almost a guarantee, a universal fact of life. If you have a family, you also have, somewhere deep in your pocket of history, a family portrait that looks just like every single one that has ever been made. If you’ve seen one family portrait, you’ve seen them all. But why do family portraits end up looking the same? Who said this genre of photography had to include what it does?

Nigel Grimmer makes photographs that expose the pressures placed on photographic genres. Putting his family in dunce caps, or having them take selfies as roadkill, Grimmer has previously explored what gets included in a family photo album. In his most recent project, Art Drag, he takes a shot at one of photography’s principal illusions — depth. Just as flattening the world to a map creates distortions to shape and size, a photograph also distorts a 3D world into a flat fantasy. The paintings highlight that — within a photograph — what you see isn’t always what you get.

In this interview, Grimmer talks about his start, explains more about Art Drag, and reveals how you can participate with him by sending your own photos.

Chunky jewellery, impish smile and a camera in hand – Joana Choumali has a face of a saint, with eyes that twinkle. I wish this interview would have taken place in the Africa’s sleekest cities, Abidjan from where she belongs, but for now I have to put right with this.

Behind those twinkle in the eyes, lies a face which has seen the harsh reality of living in a city of political crisis, young people subjected to discrimination and rejection from their surroundings. Joana’s projects deal with many intense topics like facial scarification (a fading practice carried out in the Ivory Coast), young men and girls who want to become independent and reintegrate into society, razed shantytowns and slums of Abidjan and much more. A graphic artist by education Joana was working with an advertising network giant, McCann Erikson group.

Winning the prestigious POPCAP’14 award for her project Haabre, The Last Generation, this famous photographer believes in highlighting equality of men and women in her photos. When I was randomly reading about offbeat works of photographers, Joana’s name flashed out and I decided that I want to know more about her life. Just as I was amazed by her normal but divergent approach to photography I am sure you would too. Let’s jump on to more about her life revealed in the interview.

It’s called 128 Beats Per Minute: Diplo’s Visual Guide to Music, Culture, and Everything In Between (Universe, 2012) and it was Los Angeles photographer Shane McCauley’s first major project with Diplo. Since 128 BPM, McCauley has gone on to shoot with nearly everybody: Tequila makers. Music magazines. High-end fashionistas. Standard print mainstays. And new media behemoths.

Yet McCauley didn’t start out like many other photographers. In high school, he listened to Jawbreaker, Fifteen, and Minor Threat. He went to shows in restaurants that never hosted another. He took risks and stayed away from doing things too safe. He has even said that he might have ended up dead if not for photography. In that light, it’s easy to see why McCauley’s work has a little more grit — to him, photography isn’t just therapeutic performance. It’s first craft then always, always work.

In this interview, McCauley tells us how he got his start, explains why if you go to beautiful places, you’re not always going to make beautiful work, and talks music — lots of music. Go to the end to see some of his favorite images paired to some of his favorite songs.

Our friends over at DealFuel approached us with a great giveaway. They know you love Photoshop and love getting exclusive deals you can’t find anywhere else. So they said: why don’t we give away 10 of our DealClub memberships — worth over $100 — and bundle them with a free Photoshop textures tutorial (video preview above). For those of you who don’t know DealFuel, they’re a great site that promotes the best tech and web-design products from around the world.

So what’s better than free?

Here’s how you win:

1) Tweet about this page. That’s it. No more, no less.

2) 10 winners will be selected at random.

We’ll update the page with our winners and announce it on our Facebook page!

Jeff Boudreau lives and works in London. He has worked with Vans, Tank, Aksu, and DROP magazine, among many others. In 2013, he shot and directed a video for Vogue, and, this past year, he was shortlisted for the APA / Lucie Foundation’s prestigious grant for his ongoing personal series.

In this interview, Jeff talks about how he started shooting his friends skateboarding, explains why he gets real close with his frames, and reveals how a shy person like him can make strong and bold work.